


to want again

by hexagonal



Category: One Piece
Genre: F/F, nami is a sex-repulsed lesbian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 15:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4965847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hexagonal/pseuds/hexagonal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nami is a thief and a pirate and a money-starved harpy. She should be ready to grab her scraps and run, but – it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to want again

**Author's Note:**

> *slams fists down on table* more nami/vivi!!! we need more!!! anyways, welcome to italics hell and girls getting through tough times together and being good for each other.

Nami hates men, and touching in general, and men touching her especially, and people are always surprised by this. Or, at least, the people she lets know.

She's… Never actually had sex, because the idea is terrifying and alien and makes her stomach clench in uncomfortable ways and her shoulder sting with years-old pain. Something is probably wrong with her, she thinks, but she's spent almost all of her life having men want her, and want to take her, and she wants to do things for herself for once. She just needs to believe she can.

Sometimes she wishes Arlong had died underneath that horrible tower.

 

 

"Vivi, you're so strong."

The princess whirls around from where she's watching the crew with fond eyes. "Nami?" she asks, a nervous edge to her voice but the sweetest smile on her lips.

Nami walks over to the railing and leans her weight against it. She's in one of those moods, where there's something gaping inside of her, and she doesn't want to look at happy things. Things that feel like home - they're too bright.

"You're just so-" she searches for a word that fits. "You love so much. You care, and you're selfless." _I'm selfish_ , Nami thinks to herself. _I hate that you belong to a country of people, because none of them could love you like I could._ And then, _I couldn't love you right at all._

"Nami-"

Nami whirls around, pointing a finger at Vivi and winking. "Me? I'm still doing it for the money."

Vivi's face trembles before an uncomfortable smile appears. "Of course."

Back inside a cabin that's not at all like her old cartography room, Nami stares at an empty page titled "ALABASTA" and wonders if she hates a country she's never set foot in, or herself, more.

 

 

It's fine at first, when she meets Luffy and Zoro, because they're just pirates. She's used to seduction, swallowing bile down her throat and leaving before they can steal more from her than she's stolen from them. Of course they want her to be their navigator. They haven't got sharks' teeth or leering smiles, but pirates are all the same, in the end.

But, they don't touch her, is the thing. They don't even pay attention to her at times, and not even in the way that makes her grit her teeth in a pretty smile. Luffy and Zoro are just filled with their goals, their dreams, and it's the kind of wanting that Nami understands. _Ah_ , she thinks. _So that's what it's like to be free._

When the loud-mouthed, rubber kid gives a box of dog food to a stubborn, old mutt, Nami thinks she might actually like him.

And when the two of them - a world's worth of willpower packed into a goofy kid and an ex-hunter - save the town and leave some treasure behind? Nami thinks, _fuck it_ , and sails with them. She tells herself that she deserves a break, some time to forget for a little while that she'll sit and beg and heel for money until her home is free. (She doesn't know if _she'll_ ever be free, but that's okay. She's got to be self-sacrificing in some ways to make up for her years of greed, right?)

 

 

Nami loves the Going Merry, she really does, but it isn't a big ship, and there isn't much room, which means she shares a bed with Vivi at night and stays awake more often than not, staring tiredly at the ceiling. She thinks Vivi is awake too, most nights, kept up by the weight of an entire country and the sands of time running quickly out, but the princess keeps quiet and breathes softly, and neither bothers the other.

Until, one night, Vivi speaks up in the darkness, says, "Nami, could you - could you tell me about your home?"

Nami rolls over, to look at the scraps of Vivi's face illuminated by the weak moonlight. (Nami sleeps on the outside of the bed, Vivi sandwiched between her and the wall, because she hates feeling cornered, hates knowing she can't escape. "Gotta keep Alabasta's princess safe," she had joked. "Now you can't fall off the bed when Merry's facing a storm." "Thank you," Vivi had said. Unfamiliar guilt had flooded Nami’s insides.)

"Sure. But first, why do you want to know?" Because, it's been years since the days she and her family had to eke out a living off of tangerines, but she's still so wary of the rich. Everybody in Cocoyashi Village had been too kind, but Nami feels like the rich would have spit on the dirt of Bellmere's tangerine groves and laughed at her too-small clothes.

Vivi doesn't look at her when she says, "I want to think of home, but every time I try, I see it drying up and burning down, and I'm miles away here, and - and there is nothing more I can do."

"Oh." Nami's been there too, except she was more often on the sea than not, hardly home at all in the years after Arlong. How much worse must it be for someone like Vivi, who loves her country so dearly and would never have left had her hand not been forced?

"It's not a very happy story," Nami gets out at last.

"That's fine. I just want to feel like someone has a home, memories they cherish." Vivi turns around and looks at Nami with such sad eyes, and Nami is swept away again by how strong this girl is.

"Okay," she whispers. She starts talking.

Nami thinks she talks herself to sleep as the sun is rising, and both she and Vivi have cried at least once, but they're holding each other, limbs entangled, and Nami doesn't feel horrified, doesn't feel scared. It's warm - she doesn't feel the need to forget. It's new.

 

 

They meet Usopp, and Nami is practically incredulous. She's surrounded by three men, and instead of instinctive terror, she feels safe? She doesn't get it. Two of them could kill her.

Usopp, though. Usopp, she understands. A family that left him young for death or the sea, and driven by a desperate, desperate need to protect his home - well, doesn't that sound familiar? He's a liar and a fool, but a thrilling and joyous hope makes itself known in her chest when Kuro falls, and Usopp joins their paltry crew. For a delusional second, she thinks about how she'd live if she were free.

Of course, she takes a good, long look at her shoulder and is reminded that she'll never be able to leave. She stares blankly at the quills in her room on the new ship, remembering the blood-stained ones back at the tower, and screams uselessly into a pillow.

 

 

Nami wakes slowly. The pale morning light tells her that it's early enough that Zoro's shift must just be ending, but she hears small rustles coming from near the vanity. She blinks her eyes blearily open, and a soft wave of blue fills her vision. Vivi is quietly running a brush through her hair, eyes far away.

"Good, aah," Nami yawns and stretches, letting the blankets fall away. "Good morning."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you!" Vivi turns around, guilt evident on her face. Her face looks so soft in this light, and Nami wants to trail her fingers across every inch of it.

She pulls herself up. "Nah, it's fine. Wakin' up early is good, right?" Everything seems a little fuzzy, but gentle. She lumbers over to Vivi, dragging a second chair along with her.

"Did you sleep well?" Vivi asks, her dark fingers pulling at a particularly stubborn knot in her hair. Nami sits down and reaches over, shooing Vivi's hands away so that she can undo it.

"Slept like a log. Hope I didn't snore." Nami's arm brushes against Vivi's as she takes the brush.

"It's fine. I, uh, like knowing you're there." Vivi ducks her head, and Nami feels like she should too. She wants to do something, is filled up with such a big feeling, but all she can do is rest her head against Vivi's shoulder and just breathe.

"Can I brush your hair?" Nami asks. She wants to stay here. She never wants to leave. She never wants Vivi to leave.

"Oh, uh," Vivi stutters. Her hands seem to be searching for something. "I might be a princess, but I can brush my own hair."

"You could probably wring my neck too," Nami laughs, remembers the first time they'd met, the confusion and adrenaline and wonder.

"Nami! I wouldn't-"

"I know, but I'm just saying. Anyways, I want to." And she really does. She wants to do this for Vivi like she wants to draw maps. She wants to feel every inch of Vivi like she wants to chart the rivers and mountains and dunes in the desert. She wants, and the ache is so comfortable, she is practically lost.

"Okay," Vivi whispers. She turns around, quickly, for just a brief second, and smiles at Nami. "Thank you."

Nami starts to run the brush through Vivi's long hair and marvels that Vivi's smile could make her forget about all the gold in the world. (Or, maybe just a country. The world has a lot of gold, after all.)

 

 

The blond Baratie cook makes Nami uncomfortable. She'd be lying if she said that his flirtatious advances and heart-eyed swooning weren't at least a small part of what motivated her to take the Merry and run. That, and Arlong's leering face, the memory of Bellemere's body collapsed in the dirt, large hands dragging her away from her sister. The usual.

So, Sanji leers and fawns, and she runs. Being a part of the Strawhat crew was never meant to be forever anyways.

 

 

"Why can't you be more selfish?" Vivi asks her, a wild look in her eyes.

Nami isn't quite sure how she got here. All she remembers is coaxing drink after drink after drink out of Sanji, because she could have died, everyone could have died, and what would Vivi had done if they had left her on Drum Island, such a cold and lonely place for a desert princess?

"Nami," Vivi begs.

"What d'you mean? Don't worry, Vivi, I'll get you to Alabasta - look, I can even navigate while stone cold sober - or, damn, stone drunk? Just drunk." Annoyance bleeds into her voice. What does Vivi care about her? Nami’s just a convenient navigator - the way back home, a home Vivi loves boundlessly, unconditionally. Loving Nami could only ever be constrained by conditions, because she’s such a _bitch_ , and Vivi’s talking again, and it’s horrible, because Nami will always listen.

"Nami, you don't understand, you were dying back there, you could have died!"

"Fuck, I know, I'm _sorry_ , alright?” Vivi and Nami both look skeptical about how sorry Nami is, so she tries again. “But if you weren't so insistent on gettin' me a, a doctor, then you would've been in Alabasta right now, 'kay?"

Nami shakes her head. Drum Island was too risky - sure, she'd be dead by now if they hadn't stopped there, but, hey, she's useless compared to the rest of the crew. Even Usopp - he's got fancy gadgets. She’s got some heels and some damn annoying screaming. "They would've gotten you there safe, and they wouldn't've even asked for so much money either."

Vivi looks torn between horrified and angry, face twisting up in expressions that look pretty painful, so Nami stops looking. Chooses to look at the floorboards instead. The grooves in the wood panels look very squiggly, like storm-tossed waves. Nami thinks she may be trembling.

Vivi steps in close, and Nami feels so cornered. She wants to push Vivi away, but she also wants to keep looking at the floor, and the signals in her brain get all jumbled, so she ends up just shaking her head dizzyingly. When calloused palms clasp her face and still her movements, she almost flinches away, but Vivi’s grip is too strong, and Nami’s weak will is crumbling.

“Nami,” Vivi says, and Nami is on the verge of tears. She wants to pull away, but she can’t. “Nami, look at me. Please.” And even though Vivi has strength enough to force Nami to look, she just stands there and waits for Nami to shakily lift her head up, and oh, _oh_ , Vivi is crying, how could she do this, why does she keep doing this?

“Nami, I want you to be happy. I love you, okay?” The words knock the air out of Nami’s lungs, she can’t take this, she needs to go.

“You’ve done so much for me, and you’re so important to me. I need you to be happy,” Vivi says, and it’s _unfair_ , it’s unfair that Vivi’s the one who sounds like she’s begging for Nami to understand when it’s Nami who feels like she’s losing herself all over again. She wants to give in so bad, to fall into Vivi’s arms, to pepper her tear-covered face with kisses, to give her anything she needs.

But what Vivi needs is her country, and Nami has always been painfully self-sacrificing when it comes to love, so she twists her way out of Vivi’s hands and wobbles over to the nearest wall. She closes her eyes, face scrunched up to stop herself from crying as she says, “Vivi, my job is to - to get you to Alabasta. And then, I’ll leave - we’ll all leave - and you’ll be a princess, and I’ll keep being a money-hungry bitch. Okay?”

She doesn’t stay to hear Vivi’s answer, too busy throwing herself out of the room, hiding in the shadows of the ship. She’s good at this. She’s fine with this. She’ll just keep stabbing herself in the arm, the hand, the heart, _whatever_. Who is she to expect more?

 

 

The greatest dreams she’d never dared to dream before burst into her mind like fireworks, like the bright taste of the first tangerine of the season, like a thrilled shout on a new island, as Arlong’s tower comes crumbling down. Her maps are scattered to the wind, crushed underneath the rubble, and Nami feels so light that she could come apart at the seams.

She'll never be able to forget this moment - her new scars will never let her, and she never wants to. She's still so bitter, so angry, but now, her horizons are filled with such possibility.

 _Thank you_ , she mouths. _Thank you, thank you_ , she says, when Luffy bursts out of the rubble and calls her friend, family, crew.

 

 

"Are you alright?"

Nami hums something noncommittal. She wishes Vivi could leave well enough alone. Instead, the warmth of another body settles down next to her, making a crunch in the desert sand. Vivi's hands come into view, weighed down by a heavy quilt. "Here, it's cold at night. I don't want you to get sick."

 _Again, you mean_ , Nami thinks. _You don't want irresponsible, little me to get sick again_. She's tired of being so hopeless all the time though, so she whispers a quiet thank you, and unfolds the quilt to drape around her shoulders. Looking up at Vivi - hair down, the whites of her eyes stark against her skin and the dark of the night - Nami notices that she doesn't have a blanket now. Sneaky, but Nami grins, warmth flooding her stomach.

She holds onto a corner of the quilt and stretches her arm out, opening up an approximately Vivi-sized piece of space. "C'mere," she says.

Vivi snuggles into her side as if she didn't plan this all out, and Nami lets herself curl slightly towards her. She looks so tired - the bags under her eyes have only gotten worse since they've reached Alabasta, which, makes sense. Nothing's going right.

"Sorry," Nami says, possessed by an unfamiliar urge to make things better. "I." She stops herself. What can she say?

"For what?" Vivi asks. Her right hand, squeezed between their bodies, grabs a fist full of sand, squeezes tight as if trying to imprint it upon herself. Grains slip out between her fingers, and Nami wants to scoop them up for Vivi, keep them safe for her, until she's ready to leave. Nami doesn't know what to say.

Vivi changes the topic, as if she knows her current approach will never work. "You said I could trust Luffy, right? That he could help me save my country?"

"Yeah," Nami croaks out. She remembers a straw hat on her head and a kingdom tumbling down. "He - he can do anything."

"Then I can trust you," Vivi says. "And I do. I think with you and Luffy and everyone else, I've felt more hope for my country than I have in a very long time."

A hand, with patches of sand still stuck to it, reaches out to hold Nami's quivering one, the one she stabbed herself to save a friend. And Vivi is so much more than a friend.

"Vivi, I - I'm a pirate. I'm a thief! I'm asking you for a fortune you don't have, while your people are fighting-"

Vivi shakes her head and crookedly smiles. "And I'd been working for a criminal organization for two years when you first met me. I trust you, so, it's okay. We're okay."

"Yeah," Nami breathes, letting herself believe it for just this night. "Yeah."

 

 

She reaches the Grand Line. She is terrified, and exhilarated, and quite possibly running on a mixture of too much coffee and adrenaline. There are piles of beautifully blank sheets of paper waiting for her in her room, and she's got some pilfered tangerine seeds waiting to be planted. As the rain crashes down and she navigates her friends to the start of a new world, she laughs the cleanest laugh she's had in years.

She might not be ready, but this is what she wants.

 

 

"I can't do it," Vivi whispers, staring down at her hands like they'll never be clean. "I'm useless, I can't do anything, I can't do it."

Nami sinks down to the floor of their abandoned room for the night, arms hovering over Vivi like she's too scared to touch her.

"Did you see Toto? He used to be so much fatter, he used to laugh so deeply, and Kohza, he's gone now, he thinks I've betrayed my country-"

She doesn't know what to do as Vivi goes on and on like this, muttering brokenly to herself, gasping in deep breaths of air when she runs out of words to say. Nami tries to find something for her.

"This isn't your fault," is all she can muster.

"Ha!" Vivi barks out, a single sharp tone of laughter. "That's hilarious, coming from _you_."

"What?" She leans back, feeling as hurt as if Vivi had just slapped her.

And Nami recognizes that look on Vivi's face - the one she gets when she's just ruined the one precious thing she has left, but she has to keep going, because what else does she have to lose? Something bubbles up inside of her, something that says _nonononono_ -

"I'm trying so hard, I've tried so hard for years now, and here I am, and everything's crumbling to pieces right before my eyes, and-and, you won't even love me back." She takes a deep breath before saying, "you _love me_ ," like an accusation, " _why can't you just love me_ ," like a plea.

 _I do_ , is Nami's first thought. "I, I'm not good," is what actually comes out of her traitor mouth.

Vivi whirls around, fists clenched tight on her lap, and her face is scrunched up in such dreadful anger. " _Bullshit_ ," she hisses.

Nami's heart feels like it's trying to leap out of her chest to run far, far away and sink slowly into the earth all at the same time. "I'm not good for you." It sounds feeble to her. It is.

Vivi looks upwards at the blank, cracking ceiling, like she's seeking the help of some god or other to give her the strength to stop from screaming angrily for a solid minute. (Nami's been there, but it's weird, seeing it on Vivi's face.)

A breath later, she says, "Look at me. No, look. I was ready to hurt innocents to save my people. I did. And I will, again and again and again, over and over again, even if nobody wants a dirty, helpless criminal to rule their country after all this is over - if this ends well. Nobody here is good."

Nami is petrified. Vivi is strong and beautiful and rich and everything she's tried to stop herself from hoping for, and, and, and now she's reaching out to grip Nami's weak, chubby hands in her own with bone-crushing desperation. Her eyes shine with bright tears, and her pupils are hungry, dark, yearning.

"If you can't let yourself be happy, can you at least make me happy instead? Or, think about it like, I'm loving you for myself. For me, and you too, but you're so-" she cuts herself off with an aggravated noise. "Don't I have a country to agonize over instead of - of, my crush on an emotionally stunted pirate?" She starts crying in earnest, and pulls her hands away to hold herself tight.

Nami's pale hand, moving almost against any logic of her own, reaches out to cup Vivi's face. "I love you," she says in wonder. "I love you," and she brings her forehead to touch Vivi's and starts crying too.

"You idiot," Vivi wails. "I knew that. I love you, too, despite how you’re making me cry."

This is all too much, and so Nami closes her eyes before trying to rub soothing circles into Vivi's back. Even that simple touch seems to mean so much more. "I'm sorry I made you cry. It's a special talent of mine, I think."

Vivi jolts, making a noise that is a cross between a sad hiccup and a laugh. She buries her face into Nami's shoulder, muffling her words. "Apparently my dad made people cry all the time with his speeches. We'd get letters about how inspiring, or something, he was. Then the letters became angry and bitter, because, because-"

Nami makes small shushing sounds. "Shh, shh, it's okay. It's okay. I betrayed my village practically for real, right? But Luffy and everyone else helped me get out, and now Nojiko sends me letters and tells me about the little girl who's practicing to become a pirate thief."

There's that painful hiccup-laugh again, and Vivi shakes in Nami's arms. She keeps laughing and laughing, fingers clenching and unclenching against Nami's back, and she sounds sort of hysterical when she wheezes out, "Better make sure you tell her, to, to avoid, killer-princesses."

"But who will she blackmail for money?"

"You're ridiculous," Vivi says, hitting Nami too gently to hurt.

"I'm serious," is what Nami says, even though she's really not, because she can't just solve _all_ of her issues in one go.

 

 

Nami is fidgety to say the least. To say more, she'd have to use words like 'paranoid', 'scared', 'jumpy and terrified at the faintest hint of ships on the horizon', etc.

It's Arlong, of course - since when is it not him? He's long gone now, hopefully, probably, but that's the thing - he could come back. And so Nami whips around too fast when someone opens the door without knocking, and sometimes even with. She bites her nails down short, ragged and gross, and feels compelled to show Luffy that she's mapping. She's working, she's doing good, she's earning her keep and more.

In her dreams, it's Arlong who climbs out of the rubble, and Luffy isn't a maybe, probably, hopefully. In her dreams, Arlong places a heavy hand on her tattooed shoulder, and Luffy is dead.

 

 

Vivi brushes a thumb along the strip of skin between Nami's shirt and shorts, and whispers, "Can I?"

Nami shivers at the contact and hopes that Vivi mistakes it for excitement. "Sure," she says. She's terrified.

Instead of continuing and magically curing Nami of all of her brokenness like she needs to happen, Vivi draws away on the bed, concern evident in the way she furrows her brow.

"What," Nami asks. It's more of a statement. "Something wrong?" She tries to sound seductive, something she's good at, supposed to be good at, but she mostly just sounds strained.

"Yeah, something's wrong," Vivi says.

Nami feels tears pricking at her eyes. _It's me_ , she wants to say, _I don't work right, I'm not good enough_. Everything feels so wrong, because this isn't how it's supposed to go, this is _wrong_ , even in her own lopsided life. She bites her tongue so she doesn't mess things up even more.

"You have to tell me what's wrong, Nami, I need to know what I did wrong." Vivi's not touching her at all now, has risen from the bed, hands held up in the air as if Nami needs to know that Vivi _won't_ touch her, not like this, when Nami is acting like she doesn't want it, and she doesn't is the thing, she-

"I," Nami stutters, tastes blood in her mouth. "It's me. It's. I'm the - the thing that's, wrong. I'm." She waves her hands around as if gesturing wildly will make it make sense.

"It's - the thing, that's wrong, it's, me. It's me," she repeats. She can't stop herself, because Vivi gave her so much, gave her the chance to love her, and now she's ruining it. She ruins everything, because she's a traitor at heart, it's probably in her blood or something, Bellmere should have left her for dead.

"Can I… Can I touch you?" Vivi asks, before hurriedly adding, "Not in a sexual way, nothing you don't want! I don't want to hurt you, Nami, I love you. Please. If I can help."

Nami bites her tongue again, nods. Slowly, Vivi approaches, settles down again. Places an arm around Nami's shoulder. Says a phrase over and over again in some Alabastan tongue that Nami's always wanted to ask her about. She leans into the space above Vivi's shoulder and breathes in, then out as steady as she can. Vivi smells even more like herself than usual, if that's possible. Like warm sand and figs and nectarines and a storm brewing in the distance. (Years later, she'll still associate that smell with first love.)

"I'm sorry I'm so fucked up," Nami says when she thinks that she can speak again without tripping over her own guilt.

Vivi hums something under her breath, a snatch of an old comfort song maybe, replies, "That's my line."

They sigh together.

"I'm jealous, sometimes."

"Hm?"

"Of," Nami sweeps her arm out. "All this."

Vivi holds her tighter.

"I wanted to be able to love you like a country couldn't, but. I can't match up, y'know? And I can't even love you in, well. This way." Saying it out loud feels like reaching deep into her own guts and ripping out a fish bone, or the ragged pit of a peach.

"I love you though," Vivi says. She shuffles her limbs around so that somehow, the two of them are even closer together than before. "We don't have to do anything. You don't have to do anything to prove that you love me. And loving you is freer than loving a country, to me, because, loving you isn't my duty, if that makes sense." She looks bitter, but resigned to it.

"Oh," Nami says. She laughs sort of nervously. It's flattering in a terrifying way to be compared to a country.

"I would kill you if it would save Alabasta," she says with regretful certainty, and Nami believes her. And hearing it aloud instead of ricocheting around in her thoughts, for the first time, she isn't filled with terrible envy, because truth is, love is a game of balance, and some loves will always outweigh others.

Nami presses her lips to Vivi's cheek, quick and light as a puff of breath. "And that's what I love about you. Now I'm tired and need to harangue Zoro about money tomorrow. Let's go to bed."

She pulls Vivi underneath the covers with her and, noticing the hesitancy still in Vivi's arms, kisses her way up to Vivi's lips. "Hey, you think you holding me through the night is worth a thousand beri off your debt?" she jokes.

"I'll hold you for free, you stubborn ass."

 

 

The Grand Line is rumored to be a mysterious and wretched place, where pirates die in droves and fight the grandest battles known to mankind. So of course, the very first place the Strawhat Pirates stop, they enter a giant whale and meet a woman who dresses like life is a killer nightclub and who could possibly slice Nami to little pieces. (There's a man too, but he's less impressive, and frankly, Nami doesn't give a shit - she's free, she's free, she'll keep sailing across the wide open sea until men can't even call her name anymore.)

Miss Wednesday - what kind of organization gives codenames like this - is sort of a joke until they land on an island littered with graves, and things suddenly get a lot more complicated. And Nami sees a chance for something, figures it's money, until she has the princess of Alabasta in her arms, fire reflected in their eyes. It feels familiar and painfully warm.

Thinking of missed chances and home, Nami sets sail.

 

 

"What will you choose?"

"Mm?" Vivi asks as Nami runs her fingers lightly over the skin of Vivi's neck, tracing over the horrible marks Crocodile had left. Vivi shivers under her touch, and Nami peppers kisses down her jawline, brushes her lips across sharp collarbones. Vivi's too thin. Nami already knows what she will do.

"Nothing," Nami says, lays her head on Vivi's chest and listens. Vivi reaches up a hand to work through short orange hair, clean for the first time in weeks.

Nami wishes regular thievery could solve all her problems. Stealing Vivi away could be so easy - she loved her people too much, was too used to sacrificing. But Nami was used to sacrificing too, and so she didn't push, didn't try to rip a princess from her country, even though it was so easy to see a future where they were together, onboard the Going Merry, ready to sail across the seas and take what they could before it was gone.

"I'm going to miss you," Nami whispers in the place of all the darker thoughts running through her mind. "I'll write."

"What are you talking about? You're not gone yet." Vivi's voice is soft, but her grip on Nami's arm is too tight.

This is her last chance, but she can't think of anything to say. She never was so great at talking about feelings or the future or stuff like that. "You should eat more," she notes. "You should get Terracotta to cook something special for you. Take a break for a few days, before you start ruling a country. Be Vivi instead of a princess for a while."

There's a pause.

"Nami-"

"I love you."

"You're impossible." Vivi laughs, but it sounds a little sad. "How about this? I'll take care of myself if you take care of you. No more shirtless adventures in deadly jungles. No more sacrifices for princesses, even if they promise you more money than they have. Especially if they promise you more money than they have."

Nami pushes herself up, pretending to mull it over, before leaning down quick and giving Vivi a kiss. "It's a promise, then!"

Vivi huffs, and Nami bets that if her skin weren't so dark, she'd be flushed bright red. She pulls Nami down to her and knocks their foreheads together, laughing. Nami flashes her a genuine grin that feels strangely wide on her face.

"Nami?"

"Yes, your majesty?"

"Oh my god," Vivi groans. She makes as if she is going to roll away, but at the last second she turns back, expression freer than Nami has ever seen it, and says, "I love you too."

 

 

Nami doesn't know if she'll ever be back, if she'll ever be able to set foot on Alabastan sands again and hold Vivi closer than she can bear. She doesn't know if either one of them will survive the years on the Grand Line. She _wants_ though; she wants things so bad it is like she is six years old again and seeing the world limitless before her for the very first time. And that’s exhilarating, makes her heart pound stronger in her chest and her voice sound firmer as she yells at the goddamn boys to pay attention to where they're sailing the ship.

She wants and wants and wants and wants and _wants_ , so hard that she can feel her dreams blooming at her fingertips. She laughs through her tears and hopes that Vivi feels the same.


End file.
